TO the people of his day Harry Price was "the Psychic Detective", daring to investigate hauntings and rituals to try to sort the fact from the fraud.
With financial backing from judges and notable scientists of the time, he founded an institute devoted to psychic research, and was credited with uncovering countless hoaxes.
By the time of his death in 1948, he was known as Britain's foremost e
xpert on the paranormal, and had published several books on mediums, spirits and "England's most haunted house".
But despite his seeming dedication to the truth, there was one hoax that Price never exposed in his lifetime - his own.
New research by an Edinburgh writer has revealed that, contrary to his claims, Price had no scientific training, but was instead a consummate bluffer and conman who rose to fame exposing other con-artists and staging high-profile public "experiments".
CONTROVERSY: The new book has angered Price fans
And the findings have left some of Price's current-day devotees in no mood to be friendly.
City-based Richard Morris, 40, has spent the last year digging through thousands of papers from a vast archive of Price's own documents, which he bequeathed to the University of London.
Alongside records of the many strange cases Price was involved in, including attempts to turn a goat into a man, to contact Martians and to track down a talking mongoose on the Isle of Man, he was stunned to find evidence that Price was not the man of science he claimed to be.
But it was only by chance that Morris even began investigating Price's bizarre tale, while looking into the history of city-born Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Price first came to public attention in 1922 when he exposed spirit photographer William Hope as a fraud, which greatly annoyed Hope's friend - Sherlock Holmes author Conan Doyle.
"I got started investigating Price as I was looking into Conan Doyle, who was very interested in spiritualism," says Morris. "That was something I found fascinating, that a man who was so associated with scientific truth and fact actually had a great belief in ghosts and spirits.
"But Price is an equally fascinating character, and it is really quite extraordinary that he managed to convince so many people he was a man of science."
The publicity around the Conan Doyle incident helped Price on his way to becoming the recognised face of psychic investigation.
He began arranging sittings with mediums to investigate whether they were genuine, and in 1925 he persuaded people, including Lord Sands, a well-respected judge in Edinburgh at the time, to provide financial backing for his National Laboratory of Psychical Research.
"People like Lord Sands and Conan Doyle never realised what he was doing, although there were some rumours about his spending habits at the time," says Morris.
"He actually spent funds from the laboratory on buying two Rolls-Royce cars for himself, and used the funds to put together a vast library of rare books, which had almost 75,000 volumes."
One case investigated by Price was that of Scotswoman Helen Duncan, aka Hellish Nell, who became the last woman in Britain to be tried under the 1735 Witchcraft Act, after she was accused of pretending to communicate with spirits.
Of course, he found Helen Duncan to be a fraud, even giving evidence at her 1944 trial.
The research also unearthed details about another case Price was involved in - the 1932 Brocken experiment, which used a ritual to transform a goat into a man.
Predictably it failed, and Price, who was accused of taking part in the experiment purely for the publicity, later said he had been trying to "prove the fallacy of transcendental magic".
Then there was his connection to the Nazis, which appears to have gone further than many people realise.
"He was invited over to Germany and his research was funded by the Nazi Party," says Morris.
"This has been well-documented, but in some of the letters I uncovered in his archive he talks about writing to Hitler, who was very interested in the paranormal.
"There was no sign of those letters in his archive however. It may be they've been destroyed."
While the letters to Hitler may be gone - if indeed they ever existed - there are countless other documents which reveal striking contradictions between the public and private Harry Price.
"There's a trail of papers exposing the fact he was basically a con-man. It's almost as if he wanted to get caught," says Morris.
Morris, below, knew his findings would not be welcomed by those who still hold Price in high regard, but he admits he has been a little taken aback by just how strong the response has been.
"I've already had a few phone calls, people threatening to break my legs.
"It's bizarre that in this day and age you can be threatened for trying to uncover the facts about someone who has been dead for more than half a century."
• Harry Price: The Psychic Detective, by Richard Morris, is published by Sutton, priced £18.99.
